The Labour Party and popular
participation

Mainstream
media coverage in the lead-up to the General Election tends
to focus on fluctuations in polling, most recently an
apparent growth in support for National. Left-wing critics
of mainstream electoral polling sometimes note that polling
relies on landlines, while many poor & disenfranchised
people do not have landlines.

That said, many of the same
people least likely to have landlines are also least likely
to participate in elections. Broadly speaking tangata
whenua, young people, poor people,and recent migrants are
the least likely to vote (and have landlines). This
effectively means that low turnout is bad for the electoral
'left.'

The 2011 General Election saw the lowest voter
turnout (by percentage) since the 19thcentury, when women
first won the right to vote in this country. Voter turnout
in general has declined over the last
half-century.

Statistics New Zealand have surveyed
non-voters' stated reasons for not voting. In 2011, 43% of
non-voters felt disengaged from the whole process (“not
interested,” “didn't think it was worth voting,”
“makes no difference”), while 30% of non-voters cited
perceived practical barriers (“overseas,” “couldn't
get to a polling both”). The largest proportion were
simply “not interested.”

For those of us who want to
see a truly democratic society, one based on popular
participation and self-determination, this all raises a
question of strategy. Should we 'rebuild' the Labour Party?
Should we weave together new organisations? Should we ignore
elections entirely?

In 2013 during the contest for the
Labour leadership, pro-Labour commentator Martyn Bradbury
described the three major candidates as “to the right of
Marx – just.” Winner David Cunliffe was particularly
touted as representing a “true red” Labour Party. Now
some see Cunliffe's appointment of Matt McCarten, former
Unite Union General Secretary, as a confirmation of this
move leftwards.

Matt McCarten has a formidable record.
Aswell as playing key roles in the Alliance, the Maori Party
and the MANA Movement – McCarten also helped build Unite
Union into a fighting force that has waged successful
campaigns to raise the minimum wage, end youth rates (a
reform since snatched back), and militantly organise the
growing casualised sectors that the established union
movement had neglected.

Party leader Cunliffe's record is
less flash. Cunliffe was a vocal advocate of public-private
partnerships in the fifth Labour government. As Minister of
Immigration, he oversaw the unjust detention of several
Iranian men, fought through a hunger strike and protest
campaign. Cunliffe did not oppose sending troops to Iraq or
Afghtanistan.

So what does this pairing of Cunliffe and
McCarten mean for the party? Is Cunliffe radicalising? Is
McCarten moving right? What could it mean for a future
government? John Key and others described McCarten's
appointment as a lurch to the 'far-left.' As with
accusations that Obama is a socialist, radical socialists
can only respond 'f only.'

Pro-Labour commentator Chris Trotter has
noted that as Chief of Staff, McCarten will not be
mainly involved in formulating policy. Rather, McCarten will
act as a “direct and unequivocal promoter of the party’s
already agreed goals.”

“McCarten’s history with the Greens
(once part of his old party, the Alliance), the Maori Party
and Mana will be of enormous value to Labour should they
find themselves in a position to forge a governing
coalition.”

“What Matt can do is reach
across to other progressive parties and seriously discuss
using MMP tactically so that the entire Left are united in
fighting the Government come election day... If you are a
MANA voter, vote MANA tactically. If you are a Green voter,
vote Green tactically and if you are a Labour voter, vote
Labour tactically.”

Fightback will back the MANA
Movement in the upcoming General Elections. With a stated
mission of bringing rangatiratanga to the poor and
powerless, MANA represents the most progressive section of
the working and oppressed majority. MANA maintains the link
between indigenous sovereignty and the wider struggle for an
egalitarian society.

MANA has not ruled out entering a
government with the Labour Party. There is a spectrum of
opinion within MANA on entering a government, whether
through a coalition or confidence-and-supply
agreement.

McCarten for a long time has advocated a
strategy of pushing Labour leftwards. Whether this meant
building organisations outside the Labour Party, or directly
entering a Labour Party government, the orientation was
always towards pressuring Labour, with no horizons beyond
the two-party system. Taking a job as Chief of Staff within
the Labour Party is a continuation of this strategy. This
begs the question of whether pushing Labour left, from
inside a government, is a viable strategy.

The Labour
Party remains a pro-capitalist party. They have some mild
differences with National over how to manage capitalism;
more socially liberal, more experienced with the public
sector, former union bureaucrats rather than former currency
traders. However, big business remains the largest donor to
Labour; cut the head off the hydra, and another will spring
up in its place.

Both Labour and National governments
presided over a three-decade decline in real wages. The
Labour Party initiated this project of robbing the working
majority; neoliberalism, or 'Rogernomics.' It's no wonder
that poor, young and marginal people are simply not
interested in voting.

Chris Trotter argues that “radical
constitutional reforms” in the Labour Party over 2012 and
2013 will keep the party leadership honest. These reforms
require new policies to fit with the party's
long-established “Policy Platform.”

However, signs at
the Labour Party conference in November 2013 were not
promising. Moves for transparency on the Trans Pacific
Partnership Agreement (TPPA) were defeated. The Labour Party
also maintains the policy of a $15/hr minimum wage, as a
major flagship policy.

In 2009, Unite Union campaigned for
a $15/hr minimum wage immediately. In 2009, a $15 minimum
wage would have been a step forward for working people.
However, inflation quickly wipes out short-term rises in
wages. Real wages (wages adjusted for prices and inflation)
have declined over the past 30 years.

Unite also demanded
that the minimum wage be set to 2/3 of the average wage in
future. The Campaign for a Living Wage, backed by the
Service and Food Workers' Union, also argues for a living
wage tied to 2/3 of the average wage. Labour has not taken
up the policy of tying the minimum wage to the average
wage.

Now, five years after Unite's campaign for a $15
minimum wage, the demand is a lot more conservative. With
the minimum wage recently raised to $14.75/hr by the
National government, a wage raise of 25 cents (without any
tie to the average wage) would do nothing to reverse the
trend of declining real wages. Politicians are often accused
of over-promising and under-delivering, but even this
promise is woefully inadequate.

Sue Bradford, of MANA and
formerly the Greens, holds the record for most successful
Private Members' Bills while outside a coalition government.
Many of these necessary reforms, such as raising the minimum
wage and abolishing youth rates, were backed by community
movements. Workers can win the reforms we need, without
entering government and sacrificing our independence.

A
popular meme says that "if voting changed anything, they
would make it illegal." This is a half-truth. Democracy is a
product of struggle; including for example women's struggle
for universal suffrage. When electoral work, combined with
popular struggle, has challenged capitalism and imperialism
- 'they' have done their best to make it illegal (Chile's
coup in 1973, Venezuela's attempted coup in 2002). Elections
can work as important sites of class struggle, but most of
the time, the ruling class is winning.

Fightback has no
illusions that socialism can simply be voted in. Our
participation in capitalist elections is oppositional. Even
when radicals such as MANA's Hone Harawira win seats, their
role is to support the wider community movement, not to go
into coalition with pro-capitalists.

We need
transformative strategies, not strategies that simply
reproduce the system that got us here. We need to weave
together new organisations that can move beyond the existing
political structure, from the scraps we currently
have.

The Council of Trade Unions remains the largest
formally democratic organisation in the country. Although
the CTU is currently unwilling to take risks, unions of
workers are a necessary part of forging the new movement we
need.

Organisations of the people cannot rely on big
business, or parliament. We need our own finances, our own
democracy, our own structures organised in opposition to the
capitalist system. Support for the Labour Party undermines
the possibility of liberation for the working and oppressed
majority.

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